Gene Pool

By Regina Clarke

Night comes to Whitton Falls and within the university town an insidious element is at work. Cate Somers becomes aware there is a hidden presence, alien and cold, surrounding fatal attacks on the local population.

 

Called on to help in the investigation of the attacks, along with the sheriff's nephew, Wyatt, a homicide detective from New York, Cate believes at first it is all routine. This changes when strange metal objects are found at the killing sites, objects that transform when touched.

 

The series of murders has left a trail of evidence that has its origins in a peculiar chemistry, one that can only come from beyond the Earth.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crossing Paths Press
• Release date: Jun 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781386215479

Book preview

one

NIGHT COMES AND I drive here again, as I did that first evening when it all began. Pale birches lean low over the road, silver in the moonlight. The radio plays softly. No other cars, only the steady hum of my own in motion across the hills that lie before me in puritan shapes. The dark woods crowd, shut out the sky. At last I turn off and follow the road that leads around the lake to home.

I put off this ritual as long as I can and pretend I have other things to do, but it doesn’t help. The old hall clock strikes eleven and I get up and take my jacket off the hook behind the door and pull out the keys to the car.

On the back roads my headlights catch the grasses that rise in wild profusion from the fields. I hear the river at times, the whitewater coursing, and even though I am afraid, I stop and get out and stand on the bank, listening. Stars cover the blackness. Light from an eon ago. The sound of the river soothes me a little. I go back to the road and follow the winding path again. A futile, meaningless act, born out of compulsion, as if by retracing the route over and over I can erase it.

I pass the lake only once, circling slowly. The surface is placid, black water a little lighter than the land, but it is a natural light, the diffusion of the air. From the shore comes the cry of a loon, and after a pause, an answer in the hoarse voice of an owl. Nothing else. The familiar sounds seem deceivers, a mask for something that waits out there. But it is all my own imagining. I drive on, satisfied. I can sleep, now.

I’ll leave this place soon. Events reached their end some time ago yet I’ve lingered on. Some of the residents act as if nothing ever happened, or perhaps have come to believe none of it ever did. I thought that might change, at one point, only I didn’t count on how quickly routine could re-establish itself, how it can assert the values that hold people together, or keep them apart.

The thing is, though, nothing is the same, and I can’t deny that, and in the end, I know that what we were shown, what happened to us, mattered. We were meant to understand that it did.

two

OUTSIDE THE WINDOW of my study the land slopes down and gradually meets the woods beyond. The trees are blazing with that rampant color that shows itself in New England with such clarity, as if the bone branches waiting for a November sky are letting out a secret of some sort. The red, orange, and yellow are outlined against a sharp, unyielding blue. Everything seems contained in the stillness.

It was on a day like this a year ago when Manni Price came over with her nine-year-old daughter to talk about her husband. I knew Jim, shared an office with him at the university. I'd left full-time teaching to pursue independent research, but I still liked to give a course each term on my field studies in paleontology. Such a long time in the past it seems now, those classes, the conversations and intensity of exchanges the students so willingly gave. Yet it is all just a heartbeat away, if we take time out of the equation. If we learn how to do that.

Whitton Falls is a small town, not inclined to newcomers, as I learned when I arrived three years ago, but Jim welcomed me from the start. He and Manni had been among the first to do that. Unfortunately, I’d also had plenty of time to watch him smile a little too much at the co-eds who came in to see him in the office before and after the evening classes. He was forty-five, a hard year for men, or so I’m told.

And for Manni. She looked more anxious than usual that day. Her daughter Andrea sat quietly near the fireplace in the living room while we talked, occasionally glancing at her mother.

He’s gone again, Manni began.

I was making coffee, setting out the yellow cups on the table. I love the kitchen here, with its wide boards and the old black stove. At night under the lamp the wood has an amber glow, a softness. That day the sun fell across the white linen cloth I’d put on the table, and over the yellow cyclamen in the vase.

You know he comes back, I told her, bringing in the coffee on a tray, with a glass of juice for Andrea. You always take him in, I couldn’t help adding.

She looked very frail, sitting there with a lost expression on her face. The story was her mantra, but somehow I couldn’t dismiss her. Some kinds of love are a form of illness. I’d read that somewhere, and once, maybe, I’d discovered for myself it was true. Manni seemed to be a woman who had nothing much to go on but her need for Jim. So their unhappy dance continued.

It’s not the same reason as it usually is. I’m sure of that! As Manni spoke, I saw Andrea stare at her mother and then pick up my stoker and push it irritably into the logs that were burning low. Sparks fell over the grate and I got up and replaced the screen I’d moved aside when I lighted the fire. Andrea put the brass stoker back in its place.

When he . . . decides to be away . . . he leaves me a note, telling me when he’ll be back, when he has those . . . conferences to go to. I mean, that’s what he always does. He’s really careful about it. Now he’s been gone a week, and there’s no note. I searched everywhere! Something’s happened to him, I just know it. She couldn’t hold back the tears.

That’s ridiculous. The term’s already started. Jim’s handling late registration for the rest of us and that’s too important to miss. I put my arm around her and her crying subsided. I poured us both some coffee.

The college called today, she offered in a steadier voice. They wanted to know where he was. Manni stared out the window. Gray clouds scudded across the sky in the sudden way the weather has of changing here. She rubbed her hand on her forehead, pushing back her long golden hair that always made me think of Rapunzel in the fairy tale. Her face crumpled.

Jim’s hurt somewhere. He’s probably run off one of the back roads, or been attacked, or—

Manni! I interrupted her. You have a husband who does what he wants to do just about all of the time. Jim’s not likely to get himself in any trouble. He likes things the way they are too much. I felt guilty about my last remark, but Manni didn’t seem to really hear it. Besides, I went on, what could attack him out here? We’re in Whitton Falls, which is hardly in the wilderness, remember.

Manni gave a half smile. I’m, what is it, overreacting? Do you think so, Cate?

I saw the pain in her eyes. Either way, she wouldn’t win.

Caitlin, Mom, she likes to be called Caitlin, not Cate, spoke up Andrea, exasperation in her voice. Manni looked hurt.

Of course. How stupid of me. I remember you said that, she offered plaintively.

It's fine. Everyone calls me Cate. Andrea puzzled me. She was a child who often acted a lot older than she was, and that didn’t strike me as a good thing. You’ll see, I told Manni. In a few hours, Jim will walk in the door just the way he usually does, as if he’d just been out raking leaves. Go home. Relax. Maybe take a walk with Andrea, take her shopping. I heard a groan of dismay from behind me.

All right, she said, standing up. I should do something, you’re right. I just wish—well, thanks, Cate, I mean, Caitlin.

Try not to worry, I told her as we went out onto the porch. It looked like rain for sure by then, coming in from the west. Listen, when Jim gets back, plan on getting him to the fall dance on Saturday. Ethan is organizing it this time, said he was tired of Liam Hobb's same old, same old. Last thing I'd expect him to be involved with, but there you go. He’s even got a fiddler coming down from upstate New York. Anyway, it should be a lot of old-time fun.

How is Ethan? Manni asked. She tried to say it casually, but at least for a moment her interest in my love life got her thinking about something else besides her wayward husband. Doesn’t his work sort of creep you out?

He’s a biologist, and deals in forensics. I knew that when I met him. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.

I watched the two of them go down the walk to their car. Andrea gave a quick jump and swung on the gate, for once acting like a child again. Then they were gone.

It was a trite explanation I’d given her for Jim’s absence, but it was one that made sense to me. There was no way for me to know anything else, no reason to think anything might be wrong. But everything I remember now returns in a new paradigm and I can’t shake the feeling that somehow I ought to have been more alert, should have paid more attention. Hindsight. The sense of time is so different, now.

Dusk was approaching and a thin tap of rain began on the windows. I had a lecture to prepare for a seminar that would give a summary of my research and present some of my early conclusions, but after working on it a couple of hours I gave up. I couldn’t focus. I left the papers scattered over the desk. For a while I sat with a second cup of coffee in front of the fire that had almost died out, thinking about things in general, but also about Ethan, thoughts of him invading the peace my house usually gave me. On impulse I wrote a list of words down in one of the notebooks I tend to leave lying around, just random words that came to mind. I have that notebook before me now, and the first two on the list are desolate and stranger. I wondered if that was what he and I were to each other—strangers. It was an odd, unbidden thought.

Feeling restless and unsettled, I went out for a drive along the south shore of Lake Hathorn, toward the center of town. Whitton Falls is just another one of the plethora of small towns in western Massachusetts. The university helps the local economy, bringing in an assortment of newcomers from September to May, people that the town ignores except for their spending habits. I’m a latecomer, though my parents came from here, before they eloped to the big city and left this all behind. I was born somewhere else, so I don’t have the same legitimacy for the town residents that they had. Everyone remembers my grandmother, though, a woman I never met, who lived alone and grieving for her absent son for thirty years up in the old Brinkley place above Edmonton Road.

The rain had stopped and the sky was clear but there was a chill in the air. An early winter predicted, the farmers said, and they were usually right. The moon came up full that night, caressing the hills. As I passed the lake I could see the island in the center where old Charlie Simms lived, and Ed Rosen’s oversized rowboat rocking against the pier, where a pile of boxes filled one corner. So quiet, this country. Even after several years, I couldn’t get used to the quiet, but I liked it. Still do.

I suddenly noticed a series of bright areas shining above the lake, winking on and off. The impression was more like some emanation of light from another source, the way marsh gas rises, or as if something is being reflected. Near where Simms had grounded his own rowboat I saw it again. Charlie’s lantern was visible in the window of his cabin. I glanced again at the water and the boat, but the lights were gone. I set it down to my imagination and forgot about it.

When I got back home the phone was ringing. The key stuck in the lock and I nearly broke it off in my hurry to get in. But it wasn’t Ethan, and why did I hope it was? The idea bothered me. Instead of his formal tone, I heard the distinctive voice of Fiona Harris on the other end.

Caitlin? Where have you been! I’ve been trying for ages. Did you forget to charge your cell phone again? Did you hear about the MacKenzies? Fiona was the watchdog in town, a very elegant one. Everything that happened filtered through her as if she was some special receiving station. She had become a good friend from the start, one of the first townspeople, along with the Prices, to accept me right away—or adopt me is more like it. Fiona had the notion I needed looking after, which I didn’t, but that wasn’t going to stop her. She was old family, ancestors in the woodwork, was how she explained it. Her friendship meant a lot to me.

Caitlin, she continued, not waiting for my answer, I know it’s late, but can you come over? I want you to meet someone.

It’s going on ten, I told her. I have to be up early. I’d rather not if it can wait.

This isn’t a social call, darling, she interrupted, and you won’t be wasting your time, she added in a mysterious voice. Please?

Give me a half hour. I sighed. I hated giving in, but sometimes it was harder to say no to Fiona, and most of the time it took less energy just to get it over with. I was pretty sure she knew that.

I had to pass the lake again as I headed toward her house. Clouds obscured the moonlight this time. Involuntarily I glanced over at Charlie’s island. There was nothing to see.

A few minutes later I swung into Fiona’s driveway. She was already waiting at the door, the porch light a soft glow. It was one of those prime Yankee clapboards with rooms that didn’t quite meet at right angles and slanted ceilings. Fiona kept it spotless, or rather her staff did, and the floors were original, their dark pine wood a burnished gold.

She led me into the kitchen, where a man stood leaning against the broad oak table she insisted on keeping there, despite the fact it filled half the room. He had wavy silver-gray hair and was slightly overweight, dressed in a dark blue suit set off by a bright yellow tie.

I hated to drag you out, but Jeremy here has something so important to say and I told him you were just the one who'd know what to do! With that, Fiona sat down and stared up at the two of us expectantly.

I’m afraid Fiona, in her enthusiasm, has forgotten to introduce us, he smiled engagingly, and held out his hand. Jeremy Hawkins. I’m visiting from Chicago. His eyes were a striking, vivid blue.

Well? Fiona said impatiently, looking up at him.

He began, rather hesitantly. Actually I’m not really sure it matters very much, but when Fiona became so upset at the police station—

The police station! I turned to look at her.

I was there this afternoon trying to get Sheriff Tyler to set up lights on the south side of town. A person could drive into a ditch trying to navigate some of those back roads at night.

That’s right, Hawkins said, and Fiona kindly offered to help me in my search.

What search? I asked, a little exasperated.

The MacKenzies! wailed Fiona, and she jumped up then and took a bottle of cognac from a cabinet, setting out glasses for us, chattering all the while. When Jeremy told me his story, I had to help, and I knew you’d want to, as well. It’s Rob MacKenzie and his family.

Fiona, I have no idea what you’re talking about, remember?

They’ve gone missing. The whole family. They’ve vanished. From the face of the earth. Jeremy is a witness! I caught the appealing look she gave to him as she handed each of us a drink.

Witness isn’t quite the right word, he offered. You see, I had planned a stay with Rob. We met at a conference last June. He invited me up here to go over some of my collected data on the lives of Southern writers. We were both interested in how they seemed to use—

Jeremy! Fiona’s tone stopped him. With an unassuming shrug he began again.

We were both pretty much of the same mind and had gotten on rather well. It sounded like an excellent idea. But when I arrived today, they weren’t at home. Hawkins shifted his position, leaning back against the high bench beneath the kitchen window.

Vanished! Fiona exclaimed again.

I don’t know about that, Hawkins replied quietly. I went to the police station to check the address he’d given me, and so met Fiona. He smiled. She insisted we all go back to Rob’s house, but the police—your Sheriff Tyler— declined, so I went with her.

I don’t see why you wanted to tell me any of this, I said to Fiona, puzzled. I hardly know the MacKenzies.

You do! she said. Remember last winter, when I was renovating the downstairs here and they told me I could stay with them until the work was done? It was a disaster. Rob is the original Silas Marner. He’d as soon lose an arm as pay an electric bill. I know! So she did, and had told me about it more than once, how they ate supper in candlelight and the cold room they’d put her in. A good blanket is all a healthy person needs to keep warm, Rob had told her when she complained about the temperature. Fiona was accustomed to a very different lifestyle. I had never understood why she chose the MacKenzies to stay with, in the first place.

They probably went on vacation, I told her, and Rob just forgot, which doesn’t help you, Jeremy, of course.

He has the right address, Fiona stated flatly, and the house is unlocked.

Not many of us bother to lock up out here, you know that.

Their old dog Melvin was out in the yard when we went by, Fiona went on, and I stopped and we went in and there were plates on the table just as if they were ready for dinner, and potatoes half peeled in the sink. I took Melvin over to the Talliser farm. One more dog there won’t make any difference. They have six as it is.

Well, I sighed, what did Tyler say—or suggest?

He told us thanks, but not to worry, she answered, disappointment in her voice.

See? Sounds good to me. Fiona, if the sheriff isn’t concerned, why should you be? And at least Jeremy has had the benefit of your company to assist him. I’m sure you’ve already arranged accommodations for him.

Fiona gave him the same appealing look.

She did, indeed, Hawkins said, "at a charming place called the Astor Inn, in a room on the second story that I won’t be able to find without a map. I’ve never seen so many little halls and crannies in one place.

It is odd, though, you know, he went on. That is, this is a centennial year. Rob is principal advisor for a conference in Amherst, and he also wanted me to help set up the agenda. It’s only six weeks away, and there’s a lot to do. It does seem a strange time to take a vacation. His voice had a quiet, rolling rhythm. Fiona had a penchant for strays and soft-spoken men.

Don’t you see? Fiona stopped at the sound of the phone ringing. She went into the living room and we followed her. She picked up the receiver and listened a moment and let out a faint cry of surprise. Where? she asked the caller, looking at us intently. She put the phone down, her expression both dramatic and worried.

Sheriff Tyler just found Rob MacKenzie’s car. On the south road, near the lake. Didn’t I tell you how bad it is over there? Charlie Simms called it in. It seems he found the car when he came across to get some supplies he’d left on the main pier. Only no one is inside. The sheriff wants us to go over there, she said, hopefully.

Us? I said.

The living room was in semi-darkness, only firelight casting shadows on the curtains that were blowing in the night wind. I walked over and closed the window. The fire burned more steadily then.

If he wants to see us, perhaps we should go, observed Jeremy, getting up from the sofa where he had just sat down.

I’ll leave it to the both of you, I said quickly. I still didn’t know why Fiona had wanted me there in the first place. There was nothing I knew, or for that matter wanted to know, about what the MacKenzie family was up to.

No! she said loudly. I mean, Fiona went on, in a more pleading voice, come with us. You’re always so calm about things, and you know me and my imagination.

I realized with some surprise that Fiona was afraid. It was a side of her I’d never seen before. Apparently Jeremy wasn’t enough. Despite the feeling I was wasting time, I nodded.

Okay, let’s go, I said.

She turned her head away, but not before I could see the relief in her eyes.

During the ride, she hardly spoke. Hawkins was lost in his thoughts as well. Since we’d taken my car, I just watched the road, wondering with vague curiosity what had really happened to the MacKenzies. The weariness hit me, born out of the hour but also out of the sense I had that the whole day had been confusing, that things weren’t as clear as they should be. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was out of sync.

Even now, the shapes surround and press against memory. A history lesson, only the history is mine now as well as everyone else’s. We were all part of the same thing, and I knew during that ride that I couldn’t get off the hook. Maybe, in the end, I didn’t really want to, or else everything would have been so different. For a long time I couldn’t find the frame of it, or forget what had been, or move on.

The flashing lights of the sheriff’s car appeared ahead of us as I turned the curve of the road near the main pier. Fiona leaned forward, her hand on the door. In the glare of a spotlight I could see an old green ’99 Chevy half-buried in the ditch on the right. It looked as if it had just skated into the hole, still upright. Tyler’s deputy, Tommy Hastings, was waving a flashlight in the bushes and Tyler himself was leaning over checking the tires.

Hey, Cate, where’d you come from? Tyler stood up as I approached him and gave me a grin. Shouldn’t ask that. You’re a friend of Fiona’s. Wager the whole town could be on its way out here by now. I liked him. He was a country officer, used to broken fences and petty theft and an occasional drowning, but I was pretty sure he could handle tougher situations if he had to. Tyler had that confidence some people seem to come by naturally, so they don’t have to spend any time proving it to you.

So what does it look like? I asked him, moving closer to get a better look at the car. Fiona and Hawkins had gone over to talk with the deputy.

Got me. It’s Rob’s car, all right. No sign of anyone. Tommy’s been all over the place and found not so much as a new broken branch. Only thing is this. He gestured toward the tires but I couldn’t see anything unusual, except that the tread was worn in places, which happens fast out here. The sheriff bent down and drew his hand over the rubber. He held it up to me. It was covered with a greasy film of oil.

There’s a ten-yard slick of oil on the road behind me. He pointed to an area surrounded by reflective cones.

They must have hit it and gone out of control, Hawkins said, joining us and hearing the last comment.

The sheriff’s face was a study in tolerance. Had the same thought myself, he said. Thing is, no reason for oil to be there. Nice round slick like that, in the middle of nowhere. Not a drop anywhere else, either.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Fiona walking around the car, stepping in the ditch and peering in through the windows. I was pretty sure she was out of bounds.

We’ve been calling the farms hereabouts, Tyler continued on, but nobody’s been asking for help. My guess is they got mixed up in the dark when the car hit the ditch and probably walked off in the wrong direction instead of heading back into town. If anyone’s hurt, it could be slowing them down, or it could be they’re not able to leave them alone. Those kids of theirs are all under ten. It’s easy to get lost in these woods.

Where is Charlie? I asked.

The sheriff took off his hat and wiped his arm across his forehead. In the dark, his face reflected the red and white glare of the signal lights on his car.

You know Charlie. Five words a year is too many for him. He went back to the island in his rowboat as soon as I finished questioning him. Didn’t see anything but the car.

It’s horrible, whispered Fiona. I nearly jumped. I hadn’t heard her approach.

Don’t do that! I said to her.

I wouldn’t worry if I were you, Tyler went on. They’ll turn up or we’ll find them, one or the other. Wouldn’t have brought you and Mr. Hawkins here out at all, Fiona, but you were at the station this morning. Thought you’d want to see this for yourself. I’ll let you all know when they’re back.

Tommy came up and nodded a greeting.

Sheriff, I don’t want what I said before put in the report. I mean, it was just my imagination, right?

What was? I asked, curious.

Tyler sighed. Tommy here thought he heard voices when he found the car.

Crazy, huh? I thought at first that maybe the family was nearby, stuck or something, but they were laughing. I mean, that’s what it sounded like. But it’s like I said, I must've imagined it.

Tyler agreed. Can’t see any reason to add it in. We need facts, not speculations.

I thanked the sheriff and went back to my car, with Fiona and Hawkins close behind.

What about their cell phone? Can’t we reach them on that? I wondered out loud. I hadn’t thought of it when the sheriff was talking.

Rob? Not on your life, Fiona said. He refused to own anything that had electromagnetic waves. When I stayed there it was like being back in the Dark Ages. Why, they didn’t even own a television set.

Yes, Hawkins said, we had a few discussions about that. He was very adamant that any old or new technology was going to destroy the world in our lifetime, and he insisted we communicate only by regular mail. He wouldn’t even fax his outline to me. A strong-willed man.

A stubborn miser, Fiona said. I wouldn’t want him hurt, just the same, she added, for good measure.

We’re all tired, I said to her, as I drove back along the lake road. I’m sure Sheriff Tyler is right. It'll all get straightened out in the morning. As I spoke she glanced at me quickly from the passenger side. I thought she wanted to say something, but instead she sank back into the seat and stared into the darkness.

Hawkins said goodbye and drove off in his rental as soon as we reached Fiona’s house. I felt uneasy leaving her by herself.

It’s all right. It’s not me we have to worry about, she said, as she waved goodbye.

I drove home slowly. Fiona was right, the south road needed some kind of lighting—headlights weren’t enough. It was pitch dark and the curves were hard to see even with the high beams. I passed the area they had roped off with yellow tape and the cones and a warning sign where the car was. It struck me that I ought to have seen the car in the ditch earlier that night when I drove past, but I’d been focused on the pier and the odd lights and missed it entirely. There’d been no oil slick, though, of that much I was sure.

It was past midnight when I reached home. Even though I had the early-morning class, I couldn’t get to sleep right away. The day’s events kept crowding in on my mind. Finally I threw pillows on the floor in